Michael Apostolius Explained

Michael Apostolius (Greek, Modern (1453-);: Μιχαὴλ Ἀποστόλιος or Μιχαὴλ Ἀποστόλης; in Constantinople  - after 1474 or 1486, possibly in Venetian Crete)^[1] or Apostolius Paroemiographus, i.e. Apostolius the proverb-writer, was a Greek teacher, writer and copyist who lived in the fifteenth century.

Life

Apostolius, a student of John Argyropoulos, taught for a short time at the Monastery of St. John of Petra in Constantinople.^[1] Taken prisoner by the Turks during the fall of Constantinople in 1453, he was later released and fled to Crete, then a Venetian colony.^[1] There he earned a scanty living by teaching and by copying manuscripts for Italian humanists, including his patron, Cardinal Bessarion.^[1] He often complained about his poverty: one of his manuscripts, a copy of the Eikones of Philostratus, now in Bologna, bears the inscription: "The king of the poor of this world has written this book for his living."

Apostolius died about 1480, leaving a son, Arsenius Apostolius, who became bishop of Malvasia (Monemvasia) in the Morea.

Selected works

• Παροιμίαι (Paroemiae, Greek for "proverbs"), a collection of proverbs in Greek
  • an edition published in Basel in 1538^[2]
  • a fuller edition edited by Daniel Heinsius ("Curante Heinsio") and published in Leiden in 1619^[3]
  • a critical edition edited by E. L. a Leutsch and published in Gottingen in 1851^[4]
• "Oratio Panegyrica ad Fredericum III." in Freher's Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, vol. ii. (Frankfort, 1624)
• Georgii Gemisthi Plethonis et Mich. Apostolii Orationes funebres duae in quibus de Immortalitate Animae exponitur (Leipzig, 1793)
• a work against the Latin Church and the council of Florence in Le Moine's Varia Sacra.

See also

• Greek scholars in the Renaissance

Notes and References

1. Book: The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford. Oxford University Press. 1 . 140–141, s.v. Apostoles, Michael. 1991. 0195046528.
2. https://books.google.com/books?id=i2DRFq4qOWYC Apostolii Bisantii Paroemiae
3. https://books.google.com/books?id=7qxAAAAAcAAJ Michaelis Apostolii Paroemiae
4. E. L. a Leutsch, ed., Corpus paroeimiographorum Graecorum, Gottingen, 1851, vol. 2, pp. 233–744.